Sometimes less preparation right before a trial is more.
This past week I took Soda out to the trainer's house to work him a little in her wooded area. I knew Soda had a bit of trouble with the ground before, but I didn't think much of it. Well, not only did he have trouble on the ground, but that meant we practiced being SLOW. I have previously been very persistent about not allowing Soda to run slow in training. We run fast or we he sits out. We have done so well recently. Last trial he had awesome speed. Soda's weaves at the show today were so slow. I caught myself cheer-leading in the course. Luckily I noticed and at the end of the day I ran him like I would anyways and got bursts of speed out of him. At the end of the day I also practiced some shadow handling with just a sit-stay and taking off running. I am going to start out with this tomorrow and stick to my handling (including no cheer-leading) tomorrow. I feel like practicing slow just shot us in the foot.
On the bright side, our very first time in P2 Relay we got a Q and 1st place!
Our P1 Gamblers run finally had everything come together. We made it around with my planned course and Soda did the gamble! We were just over time because I made a little snafu right before we started the gamble which took up a bit too much time. My fault. I was very happy with our run.
P2 Standard was okay. I had 1 major handling error (I forgot a front cross and chucked a rear in at the last minute so he spun after the jump). Other than being SLOW it was okay. I'm gaining a bit of confidence with the amount of handling in P2. At first at our last show I was overwhelmed...but Soda has shown if I stick with my plan, he does his part.
More agility fun tomorrow!
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